Project Summary The overarching goal of the Administrative Core of the Texas Medical Center Digestive Disease Center (TMC DDC) is to support the continuing development of Research Base and to ensure responsiveness of the Research Cores to the needs of DDC members in the three DDC participating institutions located in Houston's TMC: Baylor College of Medicine [BCM], University of Texas at Houston [UTH] and MD Anderson Cancer Center [MDACC]. The TMC DDC is the only NIH funded DDRCC in the Southwestern region of the U.S. The administrative and scientific leadership of the DDC is provided by the Executive Committee [DDC Director, Hashem El-Serag (BCM), the co-Director, Douglas Burrin (BCM), Associate Director (James Versalovic (BCM), and the two Assistant Directors Marc Rhoads (UTH) and Michelle Barton (MDACC)], and is augmented by the Internal Advisory Committee and External Advisory Committee, composed of renowned internal and external investigators. A clear succession plan has been in place. The Executive Committee meets every 4 months and on ad hoc basis as needed. The Internal Advisory Committee is comprised of the Director, Co-Director, Core Directors, and Pilot Feasibility and Enrichment Program Leaders who meet monthly. One DDC senior administrator provides the necessary support for day-to-day financial management and operations of the DDC. BCM, UTH and MDACC provide exceptional institutional support and infrastructure to promote the continued growth of our center. The DDC Enrichment Program consists of a weekly Research Seminar series directed by Dr. N. Shroyer that fosters new investigation in digestive diseases research by supporting prominent scientists to present research seminars, and an annual DDC Research Symposium. The Administrative Core oversees the Pilot and Feasibility Project Program, which has invested $1,045,000 into Investigator-initiated research in the past 5 years and is directed by Dr. D. Burrin. This program is designed to attract new as well as established investigators to pursue digestive diseases research within the theme of the DDC, Gastrointestinal Infections and Injury. A major accomplishment of the Administrative Core has been to implement a web based software (iLab Solutions) to track service use, billing and charge backs for all four DDC Research Cores thus making it easier for DDC investigators, Cores and administrators to request and obtain valuable core services.